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Sunday, August 28, 2011

Last Thursday I started student teaching. I will be VERY busy, but I'm going to try to post a couple times a week still. Lately I have been posting a couple manicures at a time. I decided to stick with a pale pink for my first day of school, just in case the dress code was strict.

Zoya Bela was perfect! This was after two days of wear. I love the way this looks at me, but I struggled with applying it. The formula is rather thick, and you have to apply it thick in order to achieve opacity. It took a really long time to dry and it still dented a little bit, even with Seche Vite.

Here it is without the flash. I know, my cuticles are terrible-looking.

I then went to my boyfriend's mom's house for the weekend. She has a chocolate lab named Buster. He is really sweet and chill, and he will let you paint his nails! (only on the back paws). We visit there once every few weeks, so I'm thinking I may make a habit of doing his toenails. Doesn't he look adorable? haha

I used OPI Sparrow Me the Drama as the base and then OPI Turquoise Shatter!

He loved it!

For the weekend, I painted my nails with OPI A Rose at Dawn Broke by Noon, and then I painted two coats of OPI I Lily Love You on top of that. It was an awesome combination

Here is the finished product. The middle finger looks like it has a smudge on it, but actually it's a giant flakie! The flakie goodness was rather difficult to capture with the camera.

Here it is without the flash.

Don't forget to enter in my 50 Follower Giveaway! You can have up to three entries if you put me on your blogroll or blog about this giveaway. Remember you must be a follower of my blog!

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Okay so I'm about 20 followers away from 50, which is nearly half of my follower base. I figured with a giveaway I can show my appreciation for all of my followers. Also it is a great way to promote the blog, because I feel rude putting links to my blog on other's bloggers' comments pages.

Here is the prize:

From left to right there are Wet n Wild Wild Shines in Kaleidoscope, Sparked, and Night Prowl, Chameleon polish in Calypso (an AMAZING duochrome), and Wet n Wild Party of Five Glitters (Lippmann Happy Birthday dupe)

Sorry, the giveaway is now closed, but keep reading for some future giveaways :)

So I cut my nails the other day. They were getting too long for my liking again. This time I kind of went overboard and they're so tiny! My nails always seem to grow back quickly though.

I love holos! I wish they would become part of permanent collections because after the limited edition shades are sold out and so hard to find! I'm not shelling out more than $20 for a bottle of nail polish, that's my bottom line! (Unless it's Chanel Peridot) Virtual Violet is pretty brilliant! Also, I'm not holding the bottle of it. Instead it's China Glaze peppermint cuticle oil. I left the bottle in the other room and was too lazy to get it!

Here it is without the flash. More holo brilliance!

Urban Decay had a massive sale with products $1 to $7!! I seized this opportunity! Excuse my duck bedsheets haha. All of this came to around $60 including shipping. I did the math because I was curious to see how much this would be with original prices and it would be around $450! So I saved nearly $400! This may be my best deal ever besides the $2 Essies I encountered at Trade Secret a couple months ago. Urban Decay still has plenty of items on their sale page, so it's not too late! Here's the listing of the items I purchased:

Monday, August 22, 2011

I haven't worn a matte polish in a while, so I picked OPI La Paz-itvely Hot.

This is probably my favorite OPI matte. Unlike the others, it has some shimmer to it. I love these because they dry so fast! They do tend to stain though. OPI says not to use a base coat with these, but I used Nail Envy matte and it seems to work fine. There have been some complaints on these regarding the wear time, but it really doesn't bother me since I change my polish so often anyway. The OPI Suedes seem to be more durable. I currently own Here Today Aragon Tomorrow, Lincoln Park After Dark, and Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees. I know they've been discontinued, but they're on Amazon and eBay.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

This week has been rather hectic so I have a couple manis that I took pictures of but just didn't post.

This is Funky Fingers- Power Play. The name reminds me of hockey. It is a very vibrant neon purple in the bottle, and I didn't expect it to be as neon on the nails. I expected it to be sheer, and it wasn't nearly as sheer as I thought. This is two coats. It also dried to a somewhat matte finish so I put Seche Vite on top of it.

Without the flash

This is two coats of Essie-Really Red and I topped it off with a glitter from Love and Beauty (Forever 21 brand). The glitter was titled "Clear", so I'm guessing there wasn't much thought put into the name. Essie Really Red is kind of jelly-like. It's sheerer than most cremes and I'm wearing two coats. In the picture it's hard to see, but in person you can see my nails through it.

Without the flash. The glitter was in a very thick clear base. I'm only wearing one coat of it. I put on Seche Vite so I don't know how long it would have taken to dry without it. This mani reminds me of a holiday like Christmas or Valentines day haha.

Monday, August 15, 2011

My last mani ended up wearing for four days without any chips! I decided to stick with glitter and I chose OPI Glow up Already

This is my favorite glitter from the 2010 Burlesque holiday collection. There are so many shades of glitter packed into this green. I cannot wait for the upcoming Muppets collection! This may be difficult to remove, but it's so worth it!

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

I have been swamped with finals this past week, so I got a little behind. Here are two manis:

On Monday I wore OPI San Tan Tonio. I didn't expect it to be so close to my skin tone and it had such a nude look. I liked it though. Unfortunately it only lasted a day because I did a project with chalk pastels and by the time I was done with it, the surface of the polish was stained pretty badly.

Next is Revlon Silver Screen. I got this in a polish lot sold to me by another blogger. Normally I wouldn't even give a second glance to a polish like this at the store. It doesn't look very special in the bottle to me, but on the nails, WOW! It is an intense metallic. It was completely opaque in two coats. The only drawback to this is that it shows every imperfection on the nail as well as air bubbles, and it's somewhat streaky but I don't mind that effect.

Here it is without the flash. I like how it reflects the color of the light.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

I used Covergirl Candy Corn as a base and then the Pure Ice light green crackle. It didn't have a name. I picked the combination first, and then realized that it reminded me of the 90s Nickelodeon color scheme!

Usually I don't wear orange alone because I feel as if it looks weird on my skin tone. I just love the combination of the orange and the green. This reminds me of the old Nickelodeon logo and of course slime! I have been watching 90s nick shows during the wee hours of the night.

Without the flash

I found an error on the bottle. It says "Apply two coats" I guess Pure Ice uses the same bottles for crackles that they use for regular polishes.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

I couldn't wait to try Blue-Eyed Girl out. I decided to layer it over a purple.

The flash picks up more of the metallic undertones, but it really looks more like a dark blue, and somewhat "blurple". I apologize for the mess. I am running on 2 hours of sleep! I have about two weeks left in the semester and all of my work is piling up!

This is so much more accurate without the flash. The purple was opaque in one coat, and this is just one coat of Blue-Eyed Girl over it. Blue-Eyed Girl is a sheer dark blue jelly packed with different sizes of blue glitter. I didn't try wearing it by itself, but I don't know how it would look. You may need about 4 coats of Blue-Eyed Girl alone for it to be opaque. I used Seche Vite as a topcoat. I really love this combo, but one problem with oversized glitters is that if they stick up just a little bit, I can't resist the urge to peel them off. It's good to press each piece of glitter into the tacky polish with a toothpick when working with these. I actually may have to redo a couple.